The new division expanded the company's product line to include entire metal float assemblies (consisting of a metal float ball, valve and rod) and helped the company target new applications for its products, such as desalination and purification of water systems in developing nations and here in the U.S.

Depending on the available options, it can mean anything from a city moving to energy intensive and environmentally problematic solutions, such as desalination plants, to the community being unable to survive.

It provides detailed coverage of technology and financing options (including recent and future trends in PV technology), potential social benefits such as desalination and agricultural development, and environmental and ecological impacts of systems and how these can be monitored, illustrated by case studies from the Sahara and Gobi Deserts.

The main areas of investment opportunity are threefold: companies controlling demand through water metering and other technologies; companies preventing leaks by shoring up decaying infrastructure (in the US it is estimated that between $30bn and $40bn annually needs to be spent on regenerating water infrastructure); and increasing supply through techniques such as desalination and filtration.

Within the context of this strategy, the department was embarking on several programmes, which would look at the diversification of the water mix, ensuring that the country explored other sources of supply, such as desalination of sea water in coastal areas, and strengthening effluent reuse.

We can save a lot of water, but efficiency and technical measures, such as desalination or drop irrigation, will only provide around 50 per cent of the additional water needed by the increased population in 2050.